Search Results for 'no'

[LucaM]

Since i suppose you’ll have little control on the exterior lights, you could create a similar artificial lighting in the studio for Key light (intensity, temperature, diffusion,  direction, etc). Consider that you’ll need separate light on the green screen to make  the Chroma Key step easier. Study how light behaves in real scene to mimick It in studio (what types of shadows, reflexes, etc).

EDIT: I am not an expert and i apologize if i am saying something not correct,  but i suppose that for camera movement in theory you have two options: shooting in the studio and match the movement in the exterior or, even  more simply, shooting in exterior and match it in the studio. Perhaps you’ll need some camera tracking in both cases, so in studio remember the tracking points!

I used green screen for my short movie and, if it may reassure you a little, even if the lights were completely off (in my defence, it was a shot made for another scene but i had to use in emergency in a different one by altering the lighting in post production) by grading it in post production i managed to match the shots in an acceptable way, so i’d say it’s not impossible with modern softwares

 

[Vasu]

Hi Master Roger & David,

I’m currently in the prep stage for a commercial that I’ll be shooting in about 15 days. There’s a specific task I’d like your advice on.

We’ll be shooting plates of crowded, iconic streets that strongly represent a certain city — locations where filming with the artist is not feasible. The artist will instead be shot on a partially built exterior set, with green screens used for the areas to be extended in CGI.

Since this is my first time working with this kind of setup, I’d really appreciate any tips or advice on shooting the plates and recreating the lighting on set to ensure that the final composition feels seamless and realistic — not like it was shot against green screen.

What should I be most careful or considerate about in terms of lighting, lensing, or camera movement?

Thank you so much in advance for your guidance.

[Roger Deakins]

Broad question. Given we were shooting on location – facing west and not on the ground floor – there were many issues with the changing daylight. I mainly controlled the light using reflectors outside the windows, to both bounce light off and to cut any direct sunlight. It also helped that the Coen brothers had storyboarded the scenes and I could judge, within reason, which angles to shoot at a particular time of day.

[Luke_VanMol]

Hi Roger,

I listed your episode about Deliverables and watched Steve Yedlin’s presentation on Debunking HDR in full. As a director and aspiring Dolby Vision colorist, I found it to be the most informative talk on HDR I have ever watched!

There is one tech problem I frequently see in HDR that wasn’t addressed that I wonder if your could shed some light on. HDR sometimes ends up noticeably darker than the SDR version. The most severe example I saw was in season 2 of Light & Magic: the interview footage was incredibly dark, then it looked normal when they intercut with footage from the films they were speaking of. All that was fixed when I switched my Apple TV to SDR mode. I also saw this same scenario on The Ten Commandments and many others. Do you know how this ends up happening?

Thank You.

[TinTin.Wang]

Hello Roger,

You’re a great cinematographer, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the future of cinema.

Cinematic images are no longer confined to the theater; they now appear on new visual devices like phones, iPads, and even in VR headsets. The cinematic look is also becoming a big concept in other visual entertainment forms, such as video games. This reminds me of André Bazin’s idea of cinema as an “Impure Form,” which means it will always be inspired by and transformed into other art forms.

As a cinematographer, what do you think the future of cinema holds? And what should a director of photography do to adapt to this ever-changing industry?

Thank you for your time.

[jeremiahr95]

Good evening, everyone.

 

I’m looking for input or suggestions on how to best tackle a challenge I’m facing for an upcoming shoot.

 

I’ll be DPing a fight scene that takes place entirely outdoors over a 12-hour shoot day. We won’t have the flexibility to avoid filming during high noon or wait for ideal lighting conditions, so my biggest concern is maintaining some level of lighting consistency throughout the day.

 

My current plan is to use a 12×12 negative fill to create a gradient and cut some of the overhead harshness, paired with an 8×8 bounce to wrap light around the actors and stunt performers. I’ll also have additional 4×4 bounces on standby as needed for close-ups or quick adjustments.

 

If anyone has experience with a similar setup or suggestions on how to improve this approach—especially with regards to keeping lighting continuity in constantly shifting sun—I’d really appreciate your insights.

 

Thanks in advance!

— Jeremiah

[Gregg]

Set a SMART goal. Specific (shoot 2 commercials and 1 independent short and create a body of work for your portfolio).  Measurable (I want a portfolio of work and I want to earn $x). Achievable (do you think it is?  What contacts do you have either in terms of fellow film makers or potential clients that you can pitch to?). Realistic (if asked, can you deliver.  Can you photograph a commercial like the ones you would like to shoot?  Are you proficient with your craft and do you have access to the right equipment required).  Time constrained (give yourself x months for example to produce a portfolio and earn $x amount of cash)!  Assess your outcome at the end and take a realistic decision… to continue or not.

The problem when you are older is that you are perceived as not being that cool anymore.  You have seen most things before and have a more mature outlook on life and experiences etc. This is a great benefit too!  I was turned down for a passion project for a younger dp.  The (inexperienced) director told me that he just thought a younger director would gel better with the rest of the young team in their early 20’s.  The advantage of youth is that you do more stuff even if the outcome is not going to be that good.  It’s great experience.  You don’t have many serious financial commitments and you can sacrifice a lot more.

When you are older you are more discriminating.  I know what I want to present and to be proud of the work that I produce and show.  Life is too short to compromise and produce work that you are not proud of.  It is very very difficult to find a project that you are passionate about where you are reasonably confident of a very good outcome.  You need to find and work with like minded people.  You need a great story that you believe in telling.  You need a director that wants that too, that cares about everything in front of the camera.  Great story.  Great acting and casting.  You need the right location for the story (a lot of work and time to find that).  The right set designer etc. You need the budget to light those locations and if you don’t have the budget you need the team to fight and agree to shoot the locations at the right time of day to take advantage of the natural light which is only good for a short amount of time.  Good editing and sound design.. You need the cash for all of this.  I can go on and on.  It is so difficult.

From Google….  “While it’s less common to see cinematographers who achieved significant recognition after a late start in the film industry, there are some examples of individuals who transitioned to cinematography later in life and still found success. These cinematographers often built on prior experience in other creative fields, bringing unique perspectives to their work.”  Does that apply to you?

Personally I believe that at a mature age, if you want to start a career as a cinematographer, you need to have an additional income stream or be financially independent to do so.

Thats my 2 cents.

[adamsteadi]

Patrick, you and I are about the same age. So here is my take.

I am 47, living in the US (not in what is considered a production “hub”…if that even exists here any more), and currently non-union. With almost 30 years of “moving up the ladder” in just about every area of production you can think of (I began shooting weddings); I finally landed a Cinematographer job at the end of last year shooting my first feature film in Belize. I shot plenty of short films before that (most were non-paying but I was able to put a portfolio of images together; and you may need to do the same) and I also worked on a handful of features as a gaffer; but I always thought the only way to the desired Cinematography position was to “move up the ladder.” If I had to do it all over again I would have just jumped right in to the film industry in some capacity and probably had landed here sooner. So your desire to move from one area in production to another is not an impossible one, but I hate to say that I think it is getting very difficult out here.

The road ahead is a very long one. Not only do you need to have the expertise and knowledge to fill the position; but you need the contacts to find the directors and producers to consider you for the opportunities that are out there. I am finding this to be the hardest part at my age. Making new contacts.

I’ve had side hustles my entire career. The year before covid hit was my best year yet in the film industry; and sadly every year since has been a slide downward. Many of us (both union and non-union) are out of work in the US; and haven’t seen much work this year at all. There are so many factors contributing to this that there are just too many to list here. Personally I’m holding onto the dream; but know that if you do reach your destination, the hustle is not over. In fact it feels sometimes like starting all over again.

[dmullenasc]

Black density in a film print off of a negative depends on the printer lights used.

Let’s say you shoot a roll with the lens cap on or just develop an unexposed roll… in the printer light scale of 0-50 points for RGB, with 25 being the middle, so in theory 25-25-25 would be the printer lights used to print something normally exposed to look normal in brightness (in reality, it’s not exactly that, for lots of reasons), as you go higher and higher, like 40-40-40 let’s say, the blacks will be denser in the print until you reach maximum possible for the stock (D-Max), which you can only go past if you leave silver in the print.

So if you expose a scene so that it needs to be printed in the high 30’s or low 40’s as opposed to the mid 25’s, then the blacks in the image will be denser unless you have some factor that is lifting them like base fog density from push-processing. Or if the overexposure is causing more flare in the image, like from an overly hot sky. There are limits because at some point if you put all of your information on the shoulder of the characteristic curve, where contrast flattens out, the image will look a bit flat with clipped highlights even if in theory the blacks are blacker.  But in general, if you rate a color negative stock slower in ASA than recommended, so that it generally prints in the high 30s / low 40s, it will have richer blacks in the print, which means a bit more saturation and feeling of contrast, “snap”.

But with digital color-correction and digital projection, it’s different. You can set any shadow area to “0 IRE” which is pure digital black… but whether it looks natural or artificially crushed depends on the image. And black level in digital projection depends on the technology used — today, laser projection is capable of black levels we used to see in film prints (if not more so) but before that, we’ve been living with somewhat grey-ish blacks with typical digital projection even if the signal is “zero”.

[Stip]

Some higher end monitors can be calibrated with these devices (LUT calibration, not ICC). Lower end monitors usually not but they can have color/tint/contrast/brightness controls, so you can get them in the ballpark by dialing it in manually when comparing to a calibrated monitor.

[KK 0055]

Hello Mr. Deakins and all forum members,

I have an upcoming shoot (a low budget short)  in which most of the scenes happen in night exterior, more like an open field, lighting a wide night exterior is something new for me, me and my director were also thinking of shooting in daytime or dusk and changing it to night in grade. I’m not a big fan of this idea but would like to know some insights and tips if anyone had tried it before. Thank you!

[Vasu]

Thanks for the insights david.

Is there any advantages of getting thicker negatives opposed to normal ones ..? Is it mainly for grain structure and contrast..?

One more question is what is the prefereed method to get thicker negatives..? Is by over exposing the negative…? How do you get denser blacks..?

[Gregg]

Having a calibrated monitor is vitally important if you are using it to check exposure, lighting contrast etc.  (Monitors for pulling focus can be ignored for this conversation)

There are many colorimeter devices out their to calibrate computer screens (Spyder, Calibrite, X-Rite, i1Display etc.).  Unfortunately it’s not apparent how these can be used to calibrate small on board camera monitors.

I would love to hear how most cinematographers calibrate their monitors.

[jamesblann]

Hi Roger,

I remember reading an article some time ago where you went into the challenges of shooting Larry’s office in A Serious Man. Watching the film again recently i’d forgotten how much variety in look you built into those scenes across the film, as Larry’s situation deepens it really helps reflect the changing mood in a subtle way. I can’t find that article now (it may even have been a post on this forum) but i’d love to know how you approached lighting here, how you maintained consistency in each scene and what your biggest challenges were on that location.

Thanks,

[dmullenasc]

Density on the negative increases with:

• Exposure and/or
• Development (time and/or temperature)

So any number of combinations are possible — you could overexpose the negative and develop it normally, you could expose normally and push-process the negative, you could even, for example, underexpose by -1/3 stop but push by +1 stop, resulting in a theoretical +2/3 stop extra density (push-processing however is not that precise.)